In contemporary fiction, men tend to write about men, and women most often write women's stories.

Nine times out of 10 readers hew to the same sexual division, with men picking up the latest Lee Child novel and women buying the new Jodi Picoult.

This is why William Morrow's publication of "All You Could Ask For" on April 2 is a big deal on several levels.

The novel tells the funny and moving story of three very different (and very appealing) women who only come together when illness unites them in an Internet chat room.

Each woman tells her story in the first person, and only a few pages in, we have the pleasure of reading about three very different females, from three very distinctive points of view.

The first surprise connected with "All You Could Ask For" is that the book was written by a man.

The second shock is that the novel was not written by just any man, but by Mike Greenberg, who is half of the hugely popular sports talk radio and TV duo "Mike and Mike" on ESPN.

In an interview last week, the Westport sports commentator said he realizes he is going against the grain in his novel and is hoping that reviewers and readers will judge what he's written on its own merits and not let his day job prejudice them.

Greenberg has written two other best-selling books -- "Why My Wife Thinks I'm an Idiot: The Life and Times of a Sportscaster Dad" and "Mike and Mike's Rules for Sports and Life" -- but he didn't approach a publisher for his first novel until he was done writing it.

"I decided I had to do something," the writer recalled of the "rage and disgust" he felt in the aftermath of his friend's death.

"My first thought was to run a marathon and solicit donations, but then Heidi's husband Adam read these incredible posts from a breast cancer support website where Heidi developed intense relationships with women she never met," he recalled.

Sitting at that memorial service, Greenberg was hit by the notion of a book about three women who meet on a similar site. ("The idea wrote itself," he said.) After writing the first 20 or 30 pages, Greenberg sent the material to his agent.

"I had almost talked myself out of it, but to my surprise my agent liked it and told me to keep going. I wrote the entire book without telling Adam or the family about it," he recalled.

Up until the sale of the book last year, Greenberg didn't mention it publicly because he figured why bring up something that would never appear.

As he wrote "All You Could Ask For," the author consulted with three "test readers" -- his wife and two other women he trusted -- to make sure that his portraits of Brooke, Samantha and Katherine were ringing true.

"They would tell me what I was getting wrong and that helped a lot," Greenberg said.

In retrospect, the author thinks that pulling off "All You Could Ask For" might not be as big a deal as it is being made out to be.

"If I have one skill as a writer, I think I'm a good observer. I don't talk that much, I listen, and to me (the three characters in the novel) are just people," he said.

The advance reactions to the book have been extremely positive. William Morrow and the author are hoping that the subject matter will be known to readers before they pick up the book, so that ESPN listeners and watchers won't be upset that "Greeny" has not delivered a male sports story.

"All You Could Ask For" is taking the sportscaster back to his original life plan.

"This is what I always wanted to do," he said of writing fiction. "Broadcasting was what I did to pay the rent while I was trying to be a writer."

Greenberg has almost finished a second novel -- with a male protagonist -- and hopes to be doing a book a year from now on.

"I'm not planning on leaving my day job, but this one is going much faster," he reported of the novel-in-progress. "I learned a lot (doing the first novel) so I'm writing more easily. And, it's lighter subject matter.

"If there's one thing I'm proud of in my life, it is stepping outside my comfort zone," he said, adding that no matter what the response of the press and public might be next month, "I'll never regret trying it, and I tried as hard as I could to do something different."

Mike Greenberg will be making two Connecticut appearances for "All You Could Ask For" -- on Tuesday, April 2, at 7 p.m. at Barnes & Noble, 1076 Post Road E., Westport and on Tuesday, April 9, at 7 p.m. at R.J. Julia Booksellers, 768 Boston Post Road, Madison. All of the author's proceeds from the book will go to the V Foundation for Cancer Research.